“How fat are you, Bernie?”

I didn’t see any point in haggling. I generally carry an even thousand dollars in walkaway money, and that was what I had now. Coincidentally enough, the ten hundreds in my left hip pocket were the very ones I’d taken as an advance on the night’s work, so if I gave it all to my coppish friends I’d break even, with nothing lost but my cab fare and a couple of hours of my time. My shifty-eyed friend would be out a thousand dollars but that was his hard luck and he would just have to write it off.

“A thousand dollars,” I said.

I watched Ray Kirschmann’s face. He considered trying for more but must have decided I’d gone straight to the top. And there was no dodging the fact that it was a satisfactory score since it only had to be cut two ways.

“That’s fat,” he admitted. “On your person right now?”

I took out the money and handed it to him. He fanned the bills and gave them a count with his eyes, trying not to be too obvious about it.

“You pick up anything in here, Bernie? Because if we was to report there was nobody here and then the tenant calls in a burglary complaint, we don’t look too good.”

I shrugged. “You could always claim I left before you got here,” I told him, “but you won’t have to. I couldn’t find anything worth stealing, Ray. I just got here and all I touched is the desk.”

“We could frisk him,” Loren suggested. Ray and I both gave him a look and he turned a deeper pink than his usual shade. “It was just a thought,” he said.

I asked him what sign he was.

“Virgo,” he said.

“Should go well with Taurus.”

“Both earth signs,” he said. “Lots of stability.”

“I would think so.”

“You interested in astrology?”